Install Zimbra Collaboration Suite 8.7 in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

Zimbra collaboration suite, shortly ZCS, is a free, open source software suite that can be used for messaging and collaboration. It comes with two editions, open source edition which is free to use, and network edition which is commercial version, consists of some closed-source components. Zimbra supports Emails, Calendar, and contacts, and document sharing. For ore details, visit the official website, link given at the end of this article, to know more about Zimbra.

This tutorial describes how to install Zimbra collaboration suite in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS server. For the purpose of this guide, I will be using the two test boxes, running with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. Here is the details of each test box.

Zimbra server:

Operating System : Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

Hostname : zimbra.ostechnix.lan

IP address : 192.168.1.105/24

DNS server:

Operating system : Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

Hostname : pri.ostechnix.lan

IP address : 192.168.1.200/24

You should use separate systems for Zimbra and DNS servers. Here is the minimum requirement for Zimbra deployment.

Quad core or higher configuration CPU

8GB RAM or more

50GB hard disk

Fast Internet connectivity

A perfect DNS configuration

Firewall should be disabled

Let us get started.

First things first

Before installing Zimbra, you need to do the following prerequisites steps.

Then, add the proper MX records in your DNS server. Go to your DNS server and add the Ubuntu server details as shown below. Please note that a separate DNS server is mandatory. You shouldn’t use single system for both DNS and Zimbra servers.

Install Zimbra

Go to the Zimbra download page and download the latest version using command:

As of writing this, Zimbra 8.7.0 stable version is not yet available for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. Installing beta version in production would be a bad idea. If you still want to deploy Zimbra in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, you can go ahead. The installation instructions are same for all versions.

Download the latest ZCS from the following location depending upon the distribution you use. As of writing this guide, the latest stable version was 8.7.

Operations logged to /tmp/install.log.2JeUNWmH
Checking for existing installation...
zimbra-ldap...NOT FOUND
zimbra-logger...NOT FOUND
zimbra-mta...NOT FOUND
zimbra-dnscache...NOT FOUND
zimbra-snmp...NOT FOUND
zimbra-store...NOT FOUND
zimbra-apache...NOT FOUND
zimbra-spell...NOT FOUND
zimbra-convertd...NOT FOUND
zimbra-memcached...NOT FOUND
zimbra-proxy...NOT FOUND
zimbra-archiving...NOT FOUND
zimbra-core...NOT FOUND
----------------------------------------------------------------------
PLEASE READ THIS AGREEMENT CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THE SOFTWARE.
SYNACOR, INC. ("SYNACOR") WILL ONLY LICENSE THIS SOFTWARE TO YOU IF YOU
FIRST ACCEPT THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT. BY DOWNLOADING OR INSTALLING
THE SOFTWARE, OR USING THE PRODUCT, YOU ARE CONSENTING TO BE BOUND BY
THIS AGREEMENT. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO ALL OF THE TERMS OF THIS
AGREEMENT, THEN DO NOT DOWNLOAD, INSTALL OR USE THE PRODUCT.
License Terms for this Zimbra Collaboration Suite Software:
https://www.zimbra.com/license/zimbra-public-eula-2-6.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Do you agree with the terms of the software license agreement? [N]

Install Zimbra

Zimbra installer will ask you a series of yes or no type questions throughout the installation. Just read and answer them accordingly.

Press Y to add Zimbra package repository.

Checking for installable packages
Found zimbra-core
Found zimbra-ldap
Found zimbra-logger
Found zimbra-mta
Found zimbra-dnscache
Found zimbra-snmp
Found zimbra-store
Found zimbra-apache
Found zimbra-spell
Found zimbra-memcached
Found zimbra-proxy
Use Zimbra's package repository [Y] ## Press ENTER

Next, you need to select Zimbra Packages you want to install. The installer will display the packages one by one. Just press ENTER to install the package of your choice.

For the purpose of this tutorial, I am going to install all components.

As you can see in the above output, It is obvious that I didn’t set password for the Zimbra admin account. So let us configure the unconfigured items. In this case, the unconfigured item (Admin password) is available under 7th section, i.e under Zimbra Store section. So just type number 7 to configure this item.

Address unconfigured (**) items (? - help) 7

A sub-menu will appear which shows the unconfigured item. As you see here, the unconfigured item no is 4. So, let us 4 to address this item.

Log in to Zimbra Web client

To access, the Zimbra web console, just type https://IP-address or https://domain-name in the address bar.

The following screen should appear. Enter the user name and its password that we created earlier from the Admin console.

Here it is how each user’s mailbox looks like.

From here, the user can send, receive mails to the other users.

Remove Zimbra Collaboration Suite

Not happy with ZCS? I hope you will like it. In case you don’t want to use ZCS remove it from your Ubuntu server as shown below.

Go the Zimbra directory:

cd zcs-*

Enter the following command to completely remove it:

sudo ./install.sh -u

Finally, delete Zimbra directory:

cd ..

sudo rm -rf zcs-*

That’s all for now guys. ZCS is one of the cool and worthy collaboration platform ever I have I tested. ZCS installation, configuration, and usage is absolutely easy. Anyone can easily install it with little Linux knowledge. If you ever wanted to setup a messaging and collaboration platform for your office, give ZCS a try. You will find it worth.